When he’s not playfully trolling his fans or ruining their lives as a fallen angel on Supernatural, actor and fan favorite Misha Collins fundraises year-round for his charity, Random Acts. And while he’s always getting his fans involved in his projects, which include a record-breaking annual international scavenger hunt, this weekend he and a few lucky fans had an unprecedented meetup on the streets of Los Angeles.
Collins may be the biggest star you’ve never heard of—unless you’re on Tumblr. A latecomer to the main cast of the CW’s flagship hit, Collins’s media-savvy ways and cheeky personality have made him a huge hit with fans. His Twitter account has over a million followers, and earlier this year his massive fanbase brought Tumblr to a veritable standstill for a random act of celebration known as Mishapocalypse.
So it’s no surprise that when he got ready to run a mini-marathon on Sunday as part of his Endure 4 Kindness endurance event and fundraiser, fans turned out to cheer him on. By the end of the weekend, they would help Collins raise over $65,000 for the campaign, which involved a weekend-long global commitment to run for a planned amount of time. But not all of the fans who lined Sunset Boulevard in L.A. on Sunday morning planned to do the run themselves—at least not until he stopped in mid-jog and invited them to join in.
Kara, a.k.a. fallenfromthursday, is a self-described “wallflower” who had planned to wait for Collins on the corner near her house, “hoping just to shout a passing cheer.”
Instead, Collins stopped on the corner when he saw her, and invited her to run with him.
For a fan like Kara, whose Tumblr is bedecked in images of the actor, the chance for such an unexpected personal encounter with him was deeply profound. As she wrote last night:
“I was just expecting to wave and watch him keep going for the sake of kindness, when he stops at the corner and asks if I’m going to join him. And I’m wearing my PJ sweatshirt and Toms so I’m not even remotely dressed for LA running weather, but I thought what the hell neither is Misha. So I started running, unable to think….”
After describing Collins’s friendliness and his interaction with her as they ran together, Kara added a heartwarming personal note to the actor that she’d been too overwhelmed to tell him at the time:
“Misha, thank you. For everything. Thank you for being an inspiration and the reason I kept pushing because I found self worth again. I told you that the show changed my friend’s life, but YOU changed mine. With Random Acts and Gishwhes and everything you made me feel like I was worth something to the world again. I started eating again. I started trying my best to get better so that I could help other people. And I wish I had told you this but it just means more than the WORLD that I could meet you at least once since I can’t go to Burcon. Thank you for doing what you do and thank you for being. Just too everything.”
Collins punctuated the day with selfies and snapshots of his fellow runners, fans included. As Kara noted, although she wasn’t going to ask to pose for a picture, he offered her one anyway—causing them to get honked at by a few drivers.
In a followup post, referencing Collins’ role as Supernatural’s angel Castiel, Kara added: “I got to fly with an actual angel today. Not many people can say that.”
Photo via fallenfromthursday/Tumblr
